A woman walks on a road dotted with bricks and stones after a protest during curfew in Srinagar, Indian occupied Kashmir, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016.

AUSTIN, Texas — Although their homelands are separated by almost 2,500 miles, Palestinians and Kashmiris share a struggle for liberation and the right to self-determination against occupying forces backed by the might of the American military-industrial complex.

While the shrinking Palestinian homeland dwindles in size among Israel’s ever-expanding illegal settlements, Kashmir is caught on the border between India and Pakistan, both of which would lay claim to the land despite members of the Kashmiri ethnic group supporting independence.

“There are about 500,000 military personnel in the region — in other words, one soldier for 25 civilians. The Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society reports more than 70,000 killings, about 10,000 enforced disappearances and 7,000 mass graves.”

Kashmir & Palestine in a global context

An Indian police man frisks a Kashmiri youth as an Indian paramilitary soldier, left, stands guard at a temporary checkpoint in Srinagar, Indian occupied Kashmir, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.

When members of either group fight back against apartheid-style policies, whether through nonviolent protest or in direct retaliation to state violence, they tend to be deemed “terrorists” by mainstream media. This terminology doesn’t just obscure their right to fight for independence from occupation, it also supports their continued oppression. Osuri noted:

“This terror frame supports the economy of arms trade between India, Israel and the United States. In this story … Kashmiri and Palestinian quests for self-determination are reduced to neighbouring Muslim or Arab states causing unrest.”

“Since the 1990s, through a decade of armed struggle against the Indian state, state violence in Kashmir has taken its toll,” Osuri wrote, noting a recent crackdown by Indian forces in which hundreds were blinded or maimed by pellet guns. Osuri reported:

“The dead numbered more than 70, and 6,000 or more were injured. These numbers continue to rise. Yet, Kashmiris continue to protest against the Indian state and call for Azadi (freedom).”

‘Most Kashmiri favor independence’

Kashmiri women walk past a closed market with graffiti painted on the shutter of a shop in Urdu that reads “Long live Pakistan” in Srinagar, Indian occupied Kashmir, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016.

“Despite a long history of wide cultural and trade links the people of Kashmir share with Pakistan, which precede its modern creation as a nation-state, most Kashmiri favor independence from both India and Pakistan,” noted Tariq Mir, a journalist based in Pakistan, in an analysis published on Sept. 26 by Boston Review.

The latest wave of protests and unrest began with the death of Burhan Muzaffar Wani, the 22-year-old leader of the Hizbul Mujahideen insurgency who was killed by Indian paramilitary police on July 8, during the third day of an Eid al-Fitr celebration, one of the most important holidays in Islam.

Kashmiris tend to divide their support between resistance groups representing various ideologies, including the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, which seeks independence for Kashmir. The Hizbul Mujahideen insurgency is a pro-Pakistan resistance group influenced by Jamat-i-Islami, a group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite these differences, according to Mir, “for the most part populist sentiment continued to favor all Kashmiri guerilla fighters, regardless of their particular political bent, so long as they resisted India.”

As news spread of of Wani’s death thousands flooded the streets of Tral, his hometown. “Soon as many as 250,000 people—perhaps the largest gathering in Kashmir in recent times—packed the town’s narrow streets, open fields, and orchards,” Mir wrote.

Though State Department officials have voiced their concerns about violence in Kashmir in the past, the most recent series of events and others have unfolded without any substantial action from the U.S. government.

‘Transnational solidarity and activism are urgent’

With India and Israel able to commit war crimes with the implicit support of the United States, Osuri wrote that “transnational solidarity and activism are urgent when almost every nation-state seems rogue.”

Joining the dots between the occupations of Kashmir and Palestine shows the need for a greater solidarity between these two sovereignty struggles.”

In October 2011, journalist Tara Dorabji visited Kashmir to report on tensions that continue to simmer even between moments of popular uprising. Dorabji wrote:

“The torture and death can be buried no longer. … Kashmiri children grow up watching graveyards populate their villages. As people are buried, the community holds their story, the memory. Oral history is their biggest weapon against India’s brutal occupation. Even under occupation, the stories of the dead cannot be silenced.”

Dorabji saw great hope in the future of Kashmir to create a new kind of indigenous-led nation, writing:

“Perhaps if the nonviolent, popular movement of Kashmir is allowed self-determination a new brand of democracy will be born: a democracy that is not founded on control through military domination—one that does not wave the flag of democracy to cover up genocide.”

Years later, and with many more dead, that hope for self-determination remains a dream for both Kashmiris and Palestinians.

The recent devastating car bombing in Mogadishu has been blamed by Somali officials on the terrorist group al-Shabab. But the violence (and famine) that have beset Somalia have deeper roots — decades of imperialism and intervention, and use of Somalia as a staging grounds for the “war on terror.”

Buried among statistics on gun profits and lobbying efforts is the terrifying reality of just how unique America’s gun obsession and associated violence are. And the equally terrifying plan by the NRA to “normalize” gun possession in nearly every nook and cranny of American life.

U.S. campaigns for regime change characteristically focus on the “madness” of the “dictators” to be toppled. In the case of North Korea, the narrative is spiced by the country’s developing nuclear capabilities — which North Korea views as its main line of defense against . . . regime change.

Aung Su Kyi, the leader of Myanmar, has been accused of “legitimizing genocide” against the country’s Rohingya Muslims, despite being a Nobel Prize laureate. Her country’s military has massacred thousands of Rohingya, leading some to call for Kyi’s Nobel Prize to be revoked.